


The Best of a Bad Situation

by Ultra



Category: Leverage
Genre: Boredom, Cuddling & Snuggling, Current Events, Established Relationship, F/M, Home, Love, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Soap Opera, Talking, Television Watching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26232565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: It's Spring 2020 and Parker & Eliot are taking the whole quarantine situation seriously, but Parker in particular is not good at staying in one place, being still and quiet... until she is. Who knew a hitter and a thief could get so into a soap opera?
Relationships: Parker/Eliot Spencer (Leverage)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 22





	The Best of a Bad Situation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [southrnbygrace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/southrnbygrace/gifts).



> For my dear friend, southrnbygrace, on the occasion of her birthday. I got inspired to write this by a bunch of tweets I saw from you a few months ago during all the quarantine/lockdown stuff. I did some research so I was able to write it correctly and I only hope that when you read it you find that I have my facts right! ;)

It could’ve been so much worse than it was, Eliot was all aware of that. The way Hardison once described it to him, the carnage that could be caused when a virus ran riot in the city, the country, the world, it didn’t bear thinking about. There was no question that anything they called a pandemic was bad, but at least most folks were doing what they could to stop it, slow it down, save as many people as was feasible.

What it meant for most was staying home as much as possible. Call it lockdown, call it quarantine, the word didn’t matter. It meant a whole lot of sitting on your butt inside of your house and staying there. Eliot could do it. It wasn’t his first choice of a way to live, but he had handled so much worse. Besides, a little downtime might even do him some good. The problem was always going to be Parker.

“I’m not built for this, Eliot,” she complained, the moment she realised she really was going to have to stay put. “I can’t be still and inside all the time. It’s not me.”

She did a good line in almost-normal these days. It had been years enough since the day they first met, since Parker threw herself off a high-rise before the count and Eliot called her twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag. She knew how to rein it in a little now, how to be something like a regular human, especially in company. That didn’t mean she wasn’t still his Parker, still as special and unique as ever. Still easy to freak out when things got weird in the world around her.

“Darlin’, it ain’t so bad,” he had told her, his arm around her back as he pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You know, it could be worse. At least we’re in the same place at the same time. Some folks are parted from their families, their friends, trapped alone someplace. We got each other, babe. That’s something, right?”

When she looked at him then, her smile lit up the room, and then she was kissing him, climbing all over him, and the rest of the afternoon disappeared through the bedroom door with the two of them determined to think no more about the world outside. They weren’t allowed to be a part of it for a good long while, might as well make the best of it.

Of course, as much fun as all of that was, even Eliot and Parker couldn’t spend all their time alone together having sex. Thankfully, he had a home gym set up at the apartment, useful for working off frustration and burning up energy that wasn’t made use of in the bedroom. Thanks to Hardison, they also knew how to order food online, even the kinds of fresh produce that Eliot relied on to keep himself and Parker healthy.

Things really weren’t so bad, except the hours seemed long after a while, and trying to convince Parker that throwing herself down the stairwell on her rig was not a suitable passtime became a real strain on Eliot’s inner-calm.

“I need ideas, man,” he told Hardison on their latest video chat, when he had finally convinced Parker to try to relax in the tub a while. “You know Parker, she ain’t the sitting quiet type.”

“Like you’d want her to be,” said his hacker friend, rolling his eyes. “You two fit so good ‘cause you both as crazy as each other in your own ways, with all your runnin’ around and throwing yourself off stuff and into stuff.”

“Damn it, Hardison, will you just shut your mouth already!” Eliot warned him through gritted teeth. “I do not need Parker hearing you talk about the stuff she can’t do right now. I need something else. I’d ask what you’re doing with all the free time locked inside, but I guess you’re just hording in your MOO or something.”

“That’s MMO, but I appreciate the effort.” Hardison chuckled. “I dunno, man, you tried binge-watching some TV? Any boxset you want, I can send it your way if you don’t got it.”

“We’re not really TV people, man.” Eliot shook his head. “If it ain’t a sport, I have no idea, and Parker... well, past Disney princesses and the superhero stuff you got her into for a while...”

“Hey, look, I’ll send you some stuff to try out, cover all the bases, all the genres and stuff. There’s gotta be somethin’ that can keep Miss Antsy-Pants in her seat for five minutes.”

Eliot hoped he was right, but he didn’t really believe it. When the files showed up in the system on the TV and he asked Parker to pick something to watch, she seemed pretty gung-ho about it. With her popcorn in her lap as if she were at the movies or something, she seemed happy enough to try out anything and everything... for about ten minutes each.

“You got the attention span of a fruit fly, Parker.” Eliot sighed as she switched from the latest TV show to the next one on the list.

“They’re boring,” she said plainly, staring at him with an expression that said he was dumb if he didn’t notice. “You’re not bored?”

Eliot opened his mouth to deny it, his lips twitching but no words coming out. Man, he hated that she was right. The cop shows were lame, the mysteries were too easy to solve, and the so-called adventure movies paled in comparison to everything they had been through themselves. Very little of the comedy struck either of them as funny, Parker couldn’t get into sports, and Eliot refused to be sucked into reality TV. She said cooking was only worth watching when he was the chef, and he insisted that any chick flick type stuff was out of bounds.

“So, what does that leave?” Parker huffed, scrolling down and down the list.

“Beats me, darlin’.” Eliot sighed. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“Maybe we’re just overthinking it,” she considered, still scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. “I mean, you and me, we took forever to figure out that we wanted to be together, because we were overthinking it, but when we finally started having sex and everything, it was the best ever.”

“Can’t argue with that,” said Eliot, trying not to grin like a fool. “What’s your point?”

“We don’t think, we just watch,” she told him, turning her back on the TV even as she continued to point the remote over her shoulder and allow the TV show titles to fly by. “Close your eyes,” she said to Eliot, smiling at the fact he didn’t question her at all, just trusted her and did it. “Now, when it feels right, yell stop.”

“Are you serious?” he checked, peeking out of one eye, at least until he realised she was very serious indeed and closed it again. “Okay,” he agreed, waiting a few seconds before calling out, ‘Stop’ just like she asked.

“Okay, this is what we’re watching,” said Parker with a triumphant grin as she hit play in the same moment as turning back around and throwing herself in close to Eliot’s side.

“ _The Young and the Restless_?” Eliot read from the title card on the screen. “What is this?”

“No idea, but we’re watching it. All of it,” Parker insisted. “That was the deal, right?”

Eliot shrugged one shoulder. “That’s the deal,” he agreed, hardly knowing what exactly he had let himself in for.

Apparently, this show they picked out was actually a soap opera. Parker didn’t know much about them. Neither did Eliot really, but he knew they were long, most having run for years and years and years. Saying they would watch all of any of them was a pretty crazy suggestion, even by Parker’s standards, but they really got into it, not just because of the deal they made, but because it turned out the show was actually really interesting.

They hadn’t started from the beginning exactly, but Eliot didn’t find that out until later, and he didn’t dare tell Parker about it. Not that he thought she would want to start over or anything. She was real invested in the storylines they were watching right now and he didn’t have to ask why.

Curled into his side one night, he was pretty sure her eyes were welling with rarely seen but thankfully happy tears as the little girl on the TV screen smiled at her step-father while he told her how very happy he was to be her daddy.

“I’m glad Cassie knows how lucky she is,” said Parker softly, words muffled against Eliot’s chest.

“Yeah. Nick’s a pretty cool guy. Not everyone who would take on another man’s kid like that.”

“But he loves Sharon so much,” Parker reminded him, seemingly fine with talking a little now the show had gone to a commercial break. “You know, it makes me feel glad too,” she said, shifting to look at him. “I never got the dad like Cassie did, but I got the great guy, like Sharon did.”

“Oh, I see how it is.” Eliot smiled down at her. “You ever meet a guy like Nick and you’re long gone, huh?” he teased her.

Parker rolled her eyes at him, not at all amused but the joke. “Nick’s great,” she admitted. “I mean, he’s a nice guy and he’s really hot and everything, but he’s no Eliot Spencer,” she said with a grin of her own as she reached up and kissed him. “You know I love you, right?”

“I know,” he assured her, “and I could not love you more, Parker.”

“I know that too,” she promised, curling up close as she could get and falling silent again. “Eliot?” she said after a while.

“Yeah?”

“You think when all this crazy stuff is over and we can actually leave the house and everything... you think maybe we could have a Cassie of our own?”

It took a moment for the words to unscramble in his brain and then for shock of the question to really sink in. Still, Eliot was used to Parker’s ways by now, and honestly, it didn’t take all that long for him to know exactly how to answer.

“You really want that, babe,” he said, shifting to meet her eyes once more, “then I would love to do something like that with you,” he told her honestly with a smile that wouldn’t shift.

Parker grinned big as she moved to kiss him again. As crappy as everything was in the world right now, it seemed maybe one good thing could going to come out of a very bad situation, at least. Things really could’ve been so much worse.


End file.
